


Intergalactic Cultural Competencies

by exmanhater



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Established Relationship, Found Family, M/M, Mpreg, Relationship Negotiation, marsupial biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 14:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13661049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater
Summary: Human anatomy is so weird, and Zeb is a very patient partner.





	Intergalactic Cultural Competencies

**Author's Note:**

> I decided with a friend that Lasats evolved from marsupial-like ancestors, and then this sort of happened? I've got it all very mapped out with a lot of detail that didn't make it explicitly into the fic, but the basics are that instead of evolving so males have two (bifurcated) penises and females have two vaginas, they evolved so everyone gets one each, plus the whole two-pouch system. I also made up an entirely separate waste system that isn't near enough to the sexual organs to be a factor. If something else doesn't make sense, let me know and I can explain. In terrifying detail. I did take a lot of liberties with things in general because it's xenology and I can. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the results of my very disturbing research into marsupial reproduction, and my love of making fun of human anatomy! Oh, the later parts of this are set in some kind of nebulous unlikely future where no one dies and instead they all live happily ever after and have babies. Just roll with it.
> 
> Many thanks to Rhea314 for story development & biology help, and to theleanansidhe for an excellent beta job!

Zeb rarely found the close living quarters on the Ghost to be a positive, but he did really appreciate that it meant he already knew what naked human men looked like before he started sleeping with Kallus. He doubted his horrified "you mean you can't put it away? It all just flaps around out there all the time waiting for someone to smash it?" would have helped set the right mood. It had made Kanan laugh raucously, but he suspected Kallus would have had a different reaction.

Even knowing what to expect, their first time had combined a lot of careful exploration with all the energy and lust of their desire. They figured things out. Over time, Zeb stopped being so cautious, and Kallus stopped pushing for more than he could actually take given their differences, and they both gradually started asking for what they wanted instead of assuming they couldn't have it.

It was good, Zeb thought, even if humans were the least well-designed sentient species he'd ever come across (it made zero sense to have orifices used for both pleasure and waste-disposal, even if it wasn't at the same time).

Then they had the family planning conversation.

"You're going into your _what_?"

Zeb frowned. "My heat. My fertile period. The time when I could have a baby if I don't take precautionary measures. What do humans call it?"

Kallus sat down abruptly. "Human men generally, though not always, do not have the ability to make a baby with another man, of any species. It has never crossed my mind to worry about accidental pregnancies with you."

"You sound like you're reciting a textbook," Zeb snorted, and sat down next to Kallus on the thin bunk.

Appearing to regain some composure, Kallus sighed. "I am. Third-year human sexuality."

"Sorry to ruin your entire worldview? Again."

Kallus laughed, leaning into Zeb's side. "It is what you do best. Well, you've started, you may as well continue."

"I'm actually a little worried about humans," Zeb said, only half-joking. "How do you even reproduce yourselves?"

"Women generally carry our young, and men only contribute to the fertilization process. It's not very common for men to be able to carry babies, or for women to just provide the sperm, although it can happen in very specific circumstances. And we don't have fertile periods, as such. We can make a baby any time, for the most part."

"That sounds inconvenient," Zeb said. He was not surprised. If humans could make anything unnecessarily complicated, they generally would.

Kallus smiled. "We make do," he said. "But you've got me curious now. Where on earth would you carry a fetus?"

Zeb scratched his head. What the hell did people learn in the Imperial academy anyway? "The usual way, in my pouch."

"…your pouch," Kallus repeated. His eyes zeroed in on Zeb's stomach.

"Yeah," Zeb replied. "We've all got 'em, men and women. Want to see?" He reached up to pull down his top.

"Yes," Kallus said faintly. "Yes, I think I would."

"You can't really see it well unless it's being used, but I'll show you where to look." Zeb finished taking off his clothes. Maybe if he played his cards right, this could turn into a hands-on demonstration. "This is technically the second pouch. The first one is where the baby starts developing."

"The…second pouch," Kallus repeated, hands wandering nicely down Zeb's torso. "Naturally."

"The first one's internal," Zeb continued. "That's where the fertilized egg goes to start developing. After a while, the fetus moves into the second pouch. That's where the milk glands are, so it can keep growing."

"How do you—how do you give birth?" Kallus asked. He was still staring.

"Give birth?" Zeb asked. What the hell did that even mean? Humans were _so_ weird.

"How does the baby get out when it's ready?"

"Through the pouch," Zeb said, very patiently in his opinion.

"I'm beginning to feel as if my education was severely limited," Kallus said after a moment. "I may regret asking this, but how does the egg get fertilized?"

Now it was Zeb's turn to stare. "Uh, I think you know that one," he said. "We do it often enough."

There was a brief, pointed silence.

"…I haven't been fucking your ass," Kallus realized, and Zeb nearly started laughing at the look on his face.

"No," he replied, keeping his chuckle as short as possible. "That's a human perversion. I like it," he added hastily, as Kallus started looking peeved. "But, yeah, I dispose of waste differently than you." More sanitarily, he thought, but he was smart enough not to say that part out loud.

"So the only reason we don't currently have quite a lot of offspring running around is because you haven't been fertile before now," Kallus said thoughtfully.

"I guess, yeah," Zeb said. "So we can only do things the other way around for a while, or use protection."

Kallus nodded. "I see. Time for a little human perversion, then?"

Zeb growled in pleasure and started getting Kallus naked.

+++

After that, Zeb spent some quality time with the holonet learning about human reproduction. He couldn't very well keep making fun of Kallus not knowing Lasat biology if he couldn't say he knew at least the basics of the human equivalent. It was disturbing, to say the least.

"Human women have to push their young out of a hole so small some of them die from it?" he said, horrified, to Kallus one night. They were both on a rare break from off-planet missions, taking advantage of their time together on Yavin before one of them got ordered elsewhere.

Kallus looked up from his datapad and grimaced. "You should probably stop looking these things up if they're going to get you so upset," he said. "We've been managing to reproduce successfully for millennia, so it can't be that bad."

Zeb snorted. "Spoken like someone who will never have to shove another human being out of their body!"

"I'm sure human women would agree with you," Kallus replied. "But I don't see any human women around here, do you?"

"Where's Sabine?" Zeb said. "She'll take my side."

"Mandalore," Kallus replied, putting down his pad and joining Zeb on their bed. "And I'm sure she would. But do you really want to spend our break arguing about human reproduction?"

Zeb saw the sense in that, and put aside the rest of his arguments on Lasat superiority to focus on demonstrating them instead.

He didn't stop his research, though.

"Did you know that depending on who humans fall in love with, they can't have biological younglings?" he said one day to Hera, while they were repairing the Ghost's hyperdrive.

"Well, yes," Hera said. "It's the same for Twi'leks. Sometimes you don't end up with a biologically compatible pairing or grouping, and even if you do, sometimes it just doesn't work out."

Zeb dropped a wrench and swore. "Are Lasat the only well-designed species in the galaxy, or what?" he added, as Hera stared at him.

"We manage," she said with a wry grin. "There's adoption, and surrogacy, and not everyone even wants to have younglings, you know."

"Yeah, I know," he said. "It just feels so weird to me that you don't always have the option if you want it."

"Are you and Kallus thinking about younglings?" Hera asked, and Zeb dropped the wrench again.

"Karabast!"

Hera smiled knowingly and slapped the hyperdrive casing as she finished the last tweak. "I won't say another word."

+++

After that, Zeb's research took on a new and terrifying practicality. Did he want a youngling? It had never seemed like an option, not with the life he had been dealt by the universe. Also, he knew Ezra, and that seemed like a very compelling argument against reproducing.

He thought about going back to Hera, to ask her if she'd ever thought about it for herself, but before he could, it came up organically with Kanan.

"You ever think you'd end up with the world's most hyperactive padawan?" Zeb asked, while they watched Ezra completely demolish a training droid without pausing his rant about Chopper's uselessness.

Kanan grinned and shook his head. "I didn't think I'd get a padawan at all," he said after a moment, in a much more solemn tone.

"Yeah, s'pose not," Zeb said. None of them had the future they'd planned for as adults, and for Kanan that was a good thing, most of the time. "Do you ever think about having a youngling with Hera?"

Zeb almost bit his tongue when he realized what he'd said. They didn't talk about Hera and Kanan's relationship, and they definitely didn't talk about the fact that it wasn't just a friendship. But Kanan didn't make a joke or leave, just sighed.

"I think about it a lot," he said eventually, shaking his head again. "I wonder what my master would say if she could see this future, if she'd agree that we have to change to survive. I think I want younglings someday, if Hera does. I want to teach more people, when there's peace. But my first responsibility is to Ezra, and to the force, and I don't have a good track record of predicting what that means five days out, much less five years."

"That's true," Zeb said, and ducked the swat Kanan aimed at his head.

"You thinking about younglings?" Kanan asked, and Zeb groaned. Trying to hide things from Kanan was as useless as hiding them from Hera, though for totally different reasons.

"We can't handle younglings right now," he reasoned. "We're only a few years into being able to handle all the adults."

"Maybe," Kanan replied. "But maybe we're not as far from that as you think."

"Maybe," Zeb said, and then he had to go stop Chopper from getting sliced in half by taunting Ezra.

They had enough trouble managing an almost adult and a crotchety droid—how would it be safe to bring younglings into things? But Kanan was right, things were getting calmer every day, and surely _his_ younglings wouldn't be as obnoxious as Ezra or Sabine had been as adolescents. He also felt somewhat of a responsibility to help the Lasat species continue, even if he wasn't truly the last of his kind. He wanted to teach someone about the culture and history of Lasan. He wrestled with the idea by himself for weeks after talking to Kanan before the obvious occurred to him. He couldn't reproduce alone—not even Lasat were that good.

"Do you want younglings?" he asked Kallus, as soon as he realized he needed to.

Kallus set down his mug of caf without taking a sip. "Do I want younglings?" he repeated, a stunned look on his face.

"Yeah," Zeb said, running a hand over his head, trying to calm his nerves. "Things are quieter now, and I—I thought maybe it was time to think about it, but I didn't know if you wanted any, and—"

Kallus kept staring, and after a moment, shook his head. Zeb hadn't known how much he wanted the answer to be yes until it wasn't, his heart sinking.

"Right," he said gruffly. "Okay, that's settled, no younglings."

Kallus startled in his chair. "What? No, I didn't—wait," he said, reaching across the table and pulling Zeb's face up to look him in the eye. "I forgot it was an option," he said quietly after a moment.

"Oh," Zeb said, and felt his entire body relax. "You ever think about it, before?"

"I never expected I'd be able to have that kind of family," Kallus said, wistful note in his voice, and Zeb remembered that even if Kallus could have found a partner who wanted to adopt a youngling, it was pretty unlikely that a dedicated career ISB agent could have made that work.

"But you wanted one?"

"I—what if we're terrible parents?"

"I don't think we'll be terrible," Zeb said. "I mean, we'll make mistakes, but c'mon, we're a good team!"

"One of us has the benefit of remembering their own parents," Kallus reminded him. "And it isn't me."

Zeb took Kallus's hands in his and squeezed. "We don't have to have any. But I'm not worried about your parenting at all. I'd only want them if you do, too. Plus, you can do plenty of research beforehand and become an expert."

"I think I would like one," Kallus said slowly, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "If you would, and once it's safe."

"Okay," Zeb said.

Okay," Kallus said.

They sat and smiled at each other like idiots, the caf forgotten on the table.

+++

Telling everyone else was tricky. Kallus didn't want to say anything until they knew it was going to work and Zeb didn't see why they couldn't.

"It's private," Kallus insisted. "And I don't need to give Kanan any more reasons to look at me like he's laughing about my entire existence."

Zeb wisely didn't comment on the Kanan thing. "They're my family," he said, for something like the fifth time.

Kallus sighed. "I know," he said, also for the fifth time.

They went back and forth about it for months, until Zeb's heat came for that year, and they had to tell Hera why they needed leave at the same time, and that it had to be _now_.

"You made a decision," she said, smiling, and Kallus looked at her blankly.

"About having a youngling?" she continued, smile slipping a bit. "I'm so happy for you!"

"Did you tell her?" Kallus demanded, glaring at Zeb, who put up his hands defensively

Hera realized her mistake and grimaced. "He didn't tell me," she told Kallus. "I guessed. But I'm still happy for you."

"Well, since it isn't a secret anymore, yes, we need joint leave to go make a youngling," Kallus said, the tips of his ears burning red.

"Permission granted," Hera said, grinning, and waved them off toward the Phantom. "Clean everything before you come back," she called, and Zeb laughed as Kallus's face got even redder.

Telling everyone else once they got back, and had confirmed that Zeb was carrying their youngling, was a breeze in comparison.

+++

"Are you—what is that?" Sabine asked, eyeing the messy pile of yarn in Zeb's lap as she walked into the cockpit of the Ghost. "Is that _knitting_?”

Zeb looked up, still focused on undoing his last row of stitches. "Yeah, Chava's been teaching me on my visits," he said. "I'm not too good at it yet."

"Why are you knitting? Actually, why are you knitting in the Ghost?" Sabine cocked her head, staring at him like he was a particularly confusing puzzle.

"Gotta have stuff ready for the joey and I thought no one would bother me here," he explained. "And it turns out, knitting helps calm me down. It's good for us both."

"It's pretty cute," Sabine said slyly. "You probably shouldn't let Ezra see, or he'll want to learn, too."

Zeb turned his attention back to the tiny hat he was working on, and shook his head. Humans were just too much trouble to understand sometimes.

But once he finished the hat and started working on a sweater, Ezra had already talked someone into giving him knitting needles, and, since Zeb didn't want to be shadowed for the rest of his pregnancy by a baby jedi covered in knots of yarn, he gave the lessons.

+++

Lasat pregnancies didn't last very long, or require much change to the parent's daily routine. Zeb remembered his sister's first pregnancy, during which she'd won three different athletic competitions and beaten their older brother at arm wrestling. Most of the time, gestation gave the parent extra energy and strength, which was only logical, since they had to nurture the fetus and themselves.

No one, however, would believe that he was fine. Kanan wouldn't spar with him, Ezra kept staring at his stomach, Sabine offered to carry things for him, and Chopper didn't electrocute him, not even once. 

It was awful.

"You're not getting sick?" Hera asked, one morning three weeks in, trying to give him a giant glass full of a tea that smelled terrible. "My aunts swear by this tea—it'll settle things even if you're not feeling it yet."

"I feel great," Zeb protested, and took a long sip of caf instead. Hera gave him a disapproving look, but didn't push things.

The next morning, he woke up to find himself alone in the bed, and almost tripped over Kallus sleeping on the floor.

"What on earth are you doing down there?" he said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He was starving. Gestation required a lot of protein energy, not smelly tea.

Kallus jolted awake and jumped to his feet. "I was worried that you wouldn't have enough space," he said, and took Zeb's arm carefully. "Shouldn't you sit down? What do you want? I'll go get it for you."

Zeb stared. Kallus was cute like this, all sleep-rumpled and with pillow creases on his face, but he was making absolutely no sense. "I can get my own breakfast, and we got a new bed two years ago that is more than enough space for us both. What are you doing?"

"Pregnancy is a time when your body has specific needs, and—"

"Why are you quoting textbooks at me?" Zeb sat down and pulled Kallus down with him. "Let me tell you again about Lasat pregnancies, since you didn't listen the last three times. I have more energy than ever, and I don't need any coddling, and I kriffing swear I will tell you if that changes."

Kallus deflated. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've been an idiot, but I don't know what to do. This is not a situation where I know as much as I'm used to knowing."

"Can't smartass your way through this one," Zeb said, and laughed at Kallus's expression.

"No, I suppose not," Kallus said. "So I'll just have to trust you."

Kallus was true to his word after that, and Zeb wasn't sure how, but he must have done some yelling and enlisted Hera's help, because everyone else also returned to normal. 

Mostly. The base-wide knitting club he'd somehow become in charge of was still pretty strange.

+++

Zeb ran through the base, opening his com and pinging Kallus. "It's happening," he yelled, when Kallus answered. He heard something hit the floor, and laughed. "I'm on my way, don't move." He silently told his joey to slow down. He wanted both its parents to be around when it finally decided to make its first appearance.

He leapt over a few boxes in his way, then veered sharply to enter the corridor to the living quarters. Kallus had their room's door open, and his face was paler than usual.

"Should you be running?" he asked, as Zeb came in and sat down. "Do we need a medical droid?"

"I'm not even winded," Zeb scoffed. "It's fine. C'mere, you'll be able to see it soon." Lasat didn't need medical droids for something as simple as a youngling's first appearance outside the pouch.

Kallus cautiously knelt on the floor and put a hand on Zeb's side. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a small hand pushed through the slit in Zeb's shirt, placed at the right spot to only show if it was being used.

Zeb felt himself tearing up, and Kallus had bright eyes as well, both of them looking with awe at the little purple fingers. They didn't look exactly like Lasat hands, except for the size and the light purple fur, and Zeb felt strangely gratified at the visible proof that he and Kallus had made this person together.

"C'mon, little one," he said encouragingly to the hand. "Your dads are waiting for you."

"Is it okay to touch?" Kallus asked, looking as though he would need to bite his hands to keep from reaching out.

Zeb nodded. "Yeah, go ahead. They don't come out until they're ready to be cuddled."

Slowly, Kallus placed one finger on the small hand resting on the edge of Zeb's pouch, rubbing back and forth. A second hand soon joined the first, and then a tiny, fuzzy head poked out, little Lasat ears flopping over a face that was both human and Lasat.

"That's our baby," Kallus said, in a tone of disbelief. "I somehow didn't realize until now how much of both of us would be in it."

The joey made a chirruping noise, responding to Kallus's familiar voice, and pushed itself further out of the pouch.

"Hey there, little joey," Zeb crooned. He reached up with one hand to encourage the joey to climb all the way out of the pouch. It grabbed onto his fingers and wrapped itself around his hand. It was still very small, but would grow rapidly now that it was more independent.

"I feel bad calling them an it," Kallus confessed, not for the first time.

Zeb rolled his eyes, also not for the first time, but he knew pronouns were a tricky topic for humans. "We don't know the sex yet, and we definitely don't know the gender and neither does it. Call it joey if you want, then."

The joey climbed up Zeb's arm, then started looking quizzically at Kallus, making a small cry and balancing its legs as if to start a jump. Even as infants, Lasat younglings had powerful legs, but Zeb preempted the jump by moving the joey over to Kallus's arms.

"Here," he said. "The little one wants you."

Kallus carefully held their joey in one hand, brushing several fingers over its small head with his other hand. He smiled at the joey, a rare, unguarded look of fondness in his eyes. The joey looked back with blinking eyes, human-shaped and surrounded by light-colored eyelashes, but with Lasat pupils and coloring.

Zeb smiled at them both, and they sat together quietly for a while. Then, reality intruded, in the form of Ezra banging on their door.

"The baby's here?" he asked, his voice high with excitement. "Zeb went running out of the hangar like a maniac. Can we see?"

Zeb sighed and got up, opening the door and letting Ezra in. Before he could shut it again, Sabine, Hera, and Kanan appeared, followed by Chopper, and he shrugged, resigning himself to sharing this moment with their whole family.

Sabine was beaming, and came over to punch Zeb's arm. "Congrats, big guy," she said. Chopper bumped against her legs and looked at the joey, letting out a questioning series of beeps.

"It's a baby, Chop," Hera said. "It's supposed to be tiny."

"He's so small, though" Ezra said, uncharacteristically hesitant. Kallus nodded and motioned Ezra closer.

"You can touch," he said, acting confident, as if he hadn't been asking the same question two minutes earlier. The joey looked up at Ezra and made a curious-sounding noise, reaching out a hand to touch Ezra's extended finger.

Zeb sighed again. "We don't know its gender," he reminded everyone, as Ezra started babbling at the joey. "Lasat younglings are joeys until they decide what they want to be, and we won't choose a name for a little while yet."

Hera smiled and shared a fond look of exasperation with Zeb. Sometimes humans were a lot to handle. "It's beautiful," she said, and poked Kanan in the side. "Isn't it, dear?"

"Amazing," Kanan said without a trace of sarcasm, one hand reaching out in a familiar gesture. "Very bright in the force."

"Is he—it going to be a jedi?" Ezra asked, distracted from the joey by Kanan's words.

Kanan laughed as all the heads in the room suddenly turned toward him. "I can't tell that now," he said. "I just mean it's a life with a lot of presence, and I can feel that."

Zeb felt an immense sense of relief. He did _not_ need to be raising a force-sensitive youngling.

The joey took that moment to start yowling, pushing itself into Kallus's stomach. Zeb smiled. "It's looking for your pouch," he explained, and took the joey back, letting it climb back inside the only pouch available. "It needs lunch."

"That is so weird," Ezra commented, as the joey disappeared into Zeb's pouch.

Zeb rolled his eyes again. "Human beings give birth to babies through a hole so small—" he was cut off abruptly by Sabine punching him again, this time significantly harder.

"No one needs another installment in the 'humans are the weirdest species' speech," she said. "Shut up and let us enjoy the new baby."

"This is _our_ joey," he complained. "I can give as many speeches as I want."

"Quite right," Kallus said. "And now I think visiting hours are over, for a little while."

After they'd regained some peace and quiet and the joey was contentedly napping in the pouch, Kallus said, "I think I owe you an apology."

"Hmm?" Zeb asked, distracted by the way Kallus kept running a hand down his side.

"Lasat reproduction is infinitely superior to human reproduction," Kallus admitted in a small voice.

"Ha!" Zeb shouted, then caught himself before he could wake the joey. "I told you!" he continued, in a quieter tone.

Kallus smirked. "Congratulations, you've won one argument. Don't get used to it."

Zeb just grinned, and pulled Kallus closer. They should start napping when the joey did, or they'd quickly run out of energy. Lasat younglings were quite a handful.

Epilogue

Zeb finished his last knitting project with a week to spare before the joey would start wanting to spend long periods of time outside the pouch, and presented it to Kallus with a flourish. "Here," he said. "Now you can do your fair share."

Kallus looked at the bundle with a bemused expression. "My fair share of what?'

"Carrying the joey," Zeb explained. "Here, I'll show you." He wrapped the knitted pouch around Kallus's waist and arms, attaching it in the back, and scooped up the joey from the floor, where it had been playing with blocks. It reached toward Kallus, and Zeb encouraged it.

"Da?" it asked, looking from the pouch to Kallus's face. Kallus smiled as he realized the point.

"You can do it," he said, nodding at the joey as it pushed its head into the pouch. Satisfied, it jumped all the way in and turned around, poking its head back out to look up at them. "Da!" it said.

Zeb beamed.

"Thank you," Kallus said. "I didn't think to even ask for this, but—"

"Don't mention it," Zeb replied, and kissed his cheek.

[the end.]

**Author's Note:**

> End notes: If you want to see the vid that inspired Zeb making Kallus a sling/pouch to carry the baby, please enjoy [these adorable orphaned kangaroos jumping into their little surrogate pouches so they can take a nap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=_YMMw2NcnM0), and then go thank reena_jenkins, as it is all her fault.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Intergalactic Cultural Competencies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17160575) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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